Altered Organism Triples Solar Cell Efficiency

An anonymous reader writes "By harnessing the shells of living organisms in the sea, microscopic algae called diatoms, engineers have tripled the efficiency of experimental dye-sensitized solar cells. The diatoms were fed a diet of titanium dioxide, the main ingredient for thin film solar cells, instead of their usual meal which is silica (silicon dioxide). As a result, their shells became photovoltaic when coated with dyes. The result is a thin-film dye-sensitized solar cell that is three times more efficient than those without the diatoms."

Lousy Headline

[Nom du Keyboard]

Lousy headline here. They haven't tripled the efficiency of the already best solar cells out there, but just some over variant that wasn't so very efficient to start with.

Re:an industrial waste angle.

[maxume]

Titanium is expensive because the oxygen needs to be stripped off of the ore; titanium dioxide is far cheaper.

That doesn't mean that recycling paint is a bad idea, but the cost of titanium isn't going to drive it.

Re:120% efficiency!

[Jurily]

Nothing is truly indefinite

Heisenberg begs to differ.

Re:Anyone else notice?

[Anonymous Coward]

FTFA:

Dye-sensitized solar cells are favored as a thin-film material because they work in low-light conditions and are fabricated with environmentally benign materials compared to silicon solar cells. However, silicon cells have more than twice the efficiency, as much as 20 percent compared to less than 10 percent for dye-sensitized solar cells.

In the low-light environmentally safe field, these are the "normal" solar cells.

If you are looking for the replacement power plant cells (toxic, always aligned with the sun, typically out in the middle of a desert to avoid clouds) these aren't the cells you want.

But if these are intended to be mass marketed and put all over the place, this is the type you want.

Re:3 times what?

[hort_wort]

Another thing I've run into in the past that was a problem: sometimes when people are talking about solar cell efficiency, they switch sensitive wavelengths on you.

There was a young boy who received high praise for making a solar cell that was "20 times as efficient as comparative cells"... Well, since the other cells were already getting 10% of the output from the sun, and since there was no way the boy could be getting 200% from the sun, it means he just expanded the wavelengths of light the cell was sensitive to. Yippee. So instead of a "Solar PV cell", he ended up with a "Vega PV cell" (or whatever star or light source you want). He made something entirely useless, but still could say it was 20 times more efficient.

I'm not saying they did that in this case, but it's something to watch for if you're paranoid.